I was cradling a body in my arms. So pale, so cold… This was so wrong—my wife was never so cold! Or so quiet. Her beautiful face was frozen in an angry frown, and the silk of her blond hair was matted with blood.
Dead. Unbelievably, impossibly dead—she, who lived through so many adventures and dangers, and fought uncountable enemies of humanity. Fate itself was on her side—how could it bring her to here and now?
Hers wasn't the only dead body around—my honor guard fought well to protect the treasury of my hidden palace—but it was the one that mattered the most.
With my mastery of the Death element, I could see that her soul had already moved on. Was that from the pain of being betrayed by her child and failed by her husband, or from the damage sustained during the fight—I didn't know. Either way, she was beyond resurrection.
"I should have been faster, should've paid more attention to our eldest… I'm so sorry, my love." I closed my eyes, feeling tears fall from them.
The Qi of the killer was blazing in the throne room. It was just as I feared—familiar and wild. There was enough Qi deviation to render a person insane five times over.
Now I regretted all the evenings spent keeping my subordinates in line and fixing their messes. Maybe if I spent more time with him, I would've noticed the signs of corruption in time.
He was always exploring one forsaken place or another, and I approved it—he inherited the adventurous spirit of his mother. Was it on one of these adventures that he lost the integrity of his mind and soul?
It was too late to wonder. The traitor must've already consumed what he came for—the Elixir of Divinity. A vile thing, despite its name.
When he asked me for it a few decades ago, my son could still hide his Qi deviation, but not anymore.
I told my son that Elixir of Divinity was made by a demonic god and is corrupted to the core, and that I only keep it to experiment with taming Qi of corrupted treasures…
I thought he had listened!
With a weary sigh, I hid my wife's body in my spatial ring. If I lived after today, she will have the grandest burial possible. If I died…
"We will meet again, my love," I promised to her. "Somehow. You will never forgive me otherwise, hah... But now, I have an unruly child to bring to his senses."
I pulled out my sword and walked down silent hallways to the throne room. The traitorous son was sitting on the throne, but sprung from it as soon as he noticed me.
His eyes had a manic glint in them.
"Father."
"Son. Still here, too. Aren't you afraid of a spanking?"
He scoffed, so much like his usual self that my heart ached even more than it already was.
"I'm stronger than you now, Father. I'm not afraid of you."
"But you still hadn't transcended. It's not too late for you to purify your deviant Qi. Refine it again."
He laughed—too loudly.
"Why should I? I've never felt better than today! The deviation and corruption you so incessantly warned us all about—it was just your lie to make other cultivators weaker!"
He laughed.
"I barely need to wish for something and Qi rushes to obey my commands. Is that how you always felt about cultivation? Is this how it feels to be a genius, Father?"
I scowled. He thought he was controlling his Qi, but in reality, it was acting on its own. He didn't have to focus on his techniques, yes—but it wasn't HIM using them in the first place! Not anymore.
"Why should I spend centuries in meditation to become chained by weakness again? No… I'm one step from becoming a true deity. There's a little piece still missing."
He raised his sword and pointed it at me.
"Your Qi, Father. Give it to me, so I could… I could fix everything!"
"Fix?" I asked incredulously. "You think all the people you killed are some porcelain plates you can just glue together? Their souls have moved on. Or didn't you notice?"
There was a flicker of uncertainty on the man's face.
"Even Mother?.. Well, that doesn't matter. Gods are all-mighty! Die!"
He charged at me, raising his sword.
"If you don't listen to reason, then I will beat sense into you!" I shouted, raising my blade to block.
Or Qi flared with multicolored energies. The swords clashed.
I woke up with a start.
My heart was beating like a bird's wings. The dream was less traumatic than remembering dying, but also somehow more.
It was still dark outside the window—middle of the night.
Only a day passed since the disastrous battle under the walls of the Thousand Swallows city. During that day, I saw a doctor who slathered my burns and broken cheekbone with some foul-smelling paste, and told me that my concussion wasn't very serious and would heal on its own. Besides that, I also got a haircut (since most of my hair melted), ate, used the Bamboo Growth technique a lot, and caught a few hours of restless sleep.
Like before, details were fuzzy, and names slipped away from me—but I remembered the faces clearly enough. There certainly could be no mistaking Tao Song for anyone else.
I got out of my bed, dressed, and went outside. Tao Song's glassy, dead eyes kept flashing through my thoughts, and the thought that Lin Chu or I could've—theoretically—killed her yesterday was deeply disturbing.
In retrospect, it was exactly this memory that made me warn Tao Song with my attack, even before I saw this dream. All my other excuses seemed just silly now.
The chill night air cleared my head a little. I went to a well, washed my face with cold water, and felt even better.
Could Tao Song really be a reincarnation of my wife from the dream? What kind of coincidence was that? Like a red string of fate!
It sounded like something from a fairytale.
This world was anything but.